Twitter stalking case dismissed by Maryland judge

John Ribeiro |
Dec. 19, 2011

A U.S. judge in Maryland dismissed on Thursday a criminal case against a person who was charged with stalking a religious leader on Twitter, upholding "a tradition of protecting anonymous speech, particularly anonymous political or religious speech".

"Thus, this statute sweeps in the type of expression that the Supreme Court has consistently tried to protect," he added.

EFF said in a statement on Thursday that it argued that even though some criticism of public figures may be offensive, emotional distress was not a sufficient basis on which to criminalize speech.